9/27/2017

After a weekend in which Rosa Parks' name was invoked numerous times as protests sprung up around the NFL in support of Colin Kaepernick, now seems like a good time to revisit her activism. Julie Dash, director of the acclaimed Daughters of the Dust, is developing a film based on Rosa Parks, but it's not the story you think it will be.

The untitled film will be set ten years before Parks refused to sit in the back of that Montgomery bus. Parks was already an activist at that point, and the story will focus on her investigation into the brutal gang rape of Recy Taylor in 1944. Parks and the other women involved in Taylor's defense helped lead some of the first nationwide protests among African-Americans, and provided an early spark to the Civil Rights Movement. The script is by Lisa Jones and adapted from Danielle McGuire's book, At the Dark End of the Street.

This sounds a lot like the upcoming film, Marshall, that stars Chadwick Boseman in as Thurgood Marshall in one of his early cases for the NAACP. Here's hoping this is the beginning of a trend telling important stories that have fallen through the cracks about some of the great figures in African-American history.

Dash previously directed 2002's The Rosa Parks Story for CBS, so in theory she's perfect for this gig. However she hasn't been at the helm of a major feature since. Her background in TV is considerable, though, and she recently joined with Ava DuVernay to direct an episode of Queen Sugar.